iPhone 6 hardware specs and design: The final leaks and rumors rounded up (updated)

As Apple’s iPhone 6 event is almost upon us, it’s time to take one last look at the latest and most reliable leaks for the iPhone 6’s design, hardware specs, and software. It now seems almost certain that the iPhone 6’s design will deviate massively from the iPhone 5 and 5S, adopting a much larger display and softer, curvier edges, like the newer iPads. We should see a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 tomorrow, and possibly a 5.5-inch model too. Other than larger screens, and perhaps the long-overdue unveil of the iWatch, can Apple offer anything that’s truly innovative to fight off the growing market share of Android? Might we see a sapphire display? An actual, working NFC mobile payments solution?

Let’s take a closer look at what we know about the iPhone 6’s hardware specs, design, screen sizes, and software.

iPhone 6 design and screen sizes

For the iPhone 6, an unusually large number of leaks have emerged from the Chinese supply chain this time around. For months now we have been seeing full-size dummies (non-working replicas used in the design and manufacturing process) of a new, curvier iPhone. Later, videos of complete, working phones appear to confirm that the iPhone 6 will indeed be much smoother and rounder than the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5. It now seems almost certain that the iPhone 6 will more closely resemble the newer iPad Air and iPad Mini.

The video below, which purports to show a working iPhone 6, is probably the most complete/best leak yet.

There will apparently be two models of the iPhone 6: a 4.7-inch iPhone 6, and a 5.5-inch iPhone 6. Most leaked videos and photos have shown the 4.7-inch model, but the 5.5-inch version will presumably be very similar. The 5.5-inch design could be called the iPhone 6 Pro, or something along those lines.

iPhone 5S vs. iPhone 6, side-by-side thickness

The iPhone 6 will also be very thin — around 6mm or so. So thin, in fact, that the rear camera bulges slightly. (It won’t have been physically possible to build a smaller camera unit that still retained good image quality, due to some pesky laws of physics.) The video leaks also suggest that the iPhone 6 will be very light — though I suspect this is more a matter of the weight being spread out across a larger chassis. I wouldn’t put it past Apple to beat the current Android flagships in weight and thickness, but not by much.

Most leaks now point to the iPhone 6 having a slightly curved display — or at least a glass front that tapers in at the bezel, giving it a softer outline/edge, making it nicer/easier to hold in one hand. It looks like the curve will be convex rather than concave, too — so, the opposite of the Samsung Galaxy Round. I don’t think curvature will be a major feature for the iPhone 6, though; it’ll be a slight, ergonomic-oriented thing.

This video, in Russian (but with English subtitles that you can enable), has a few shots of the internals of the iPhone 6. It seems to tally up fairly well with the Chinese video.

iPhone 6 hardware specs

While we know a lot about how the iPhone 6 will look, we know relatively little about its internal hardware specs. The display resolution will certainly increase — probably to 1920×1080 on the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, and 2560×1440 on the 5.5-inch iPhone 6.

It now seems almost certain that the iPhone 6 will finally act as the vehicle for Apple’s belated foray into NFC (near-field communications). NFC will allow the iPhone 6 to act as a digital wallet/contactless payment device. Apple reportedly has the all-important partnerships in place for such an effort to succeed (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc.)

iPhone 6 internals, from leaked Russian video. Apparently they found an A8 SoC in there.

There will almost certainly be a new A8 SoC in the iPhone 6, but there’s no hard data on what specs the chip might have. Both the A6 and A7 were big departures from previous Apple SoCs, but I’d be surprised if the A8 continued that trend. As we’ve covered previously, the A7 is a beast of a chip, with a lot of performance gains to be realized by turning the clock speed up. In Intel chip release parlance, I’d expect the A8 to be more of a “tick” than a microarchitectural overhaul “tock.” I’d expect the iPhone 6’s CPU to be clocked at around 1.5GHz, and perhaps to feature a new or tweaked GPU, but otherwise it’ll be mostly unchanged.

Finally, the camera. The hands-on videos have all noted that the camera on the iPhone 6 is significantly improved from the iPhone 5S. It seems to shoot photos very quickly, and have higher resolution than the predecessor. Apple recently hired Nokia’s camera engineer Ari Partinen, but that’s more likely to have an affect on a later model of the iPhone, such as the iPhone 6S or 7. Apple received an optical image stabilization (OIS) patent, and it’s about time that the iPhone gained OIS (Nokia and HTC have had OIS tech for a while now). You can count on there being a bigger or better imaging sensor — not necessarily more megapixels, but bigger and better pixels. Exact specs for the iPhone 6’s camera will have to wait for the September 9 unveil.

iOS 8 Healthbook app [Image credit: 9to5Mac]

iPhone 6 software specs

The iPhone 6 will come with iOS 8, which was unveiled at WWDC back in June. iOS 8 is an iterative update over iOS 7, mostly bringing lots of tweaks and polish. There will be at least one new app, though: Health. Health, part of HealthKit, will be a health-tracking app that uses the iPhone’s sensors to give you real-life analytics. It will probably tie in with the iWatch, which Apple is expected to announce at the same September 9 event.

Apple’s Passbook, a relatively unused/unknown iOS app, will probably be updated to become some kind of digital wallet. Exact details of Apple’s implementation will have to wait for the official unveil, but you will probably be able to load your credit cards into the app, and then use your iPhone 6 as a contactless payment method.

Maps in iOS 8

Apple’s Maps app is also expected to receive some love, including clearer labels and the addition of public transit directions. Following its acquisition of Beats, something may occur on the music front as well.

The iPhone 6 design and hardware leaks, in conclusion…

Overall, then, the biggest change you can expect with the iPhone 6 is a larger screen. I’m still a little bit uncertain about there being two new models of iPhone 6. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 5.5-inch model doesn’t actually exist, or isn’t released until next year.

As we’ve mentioned before, a lot of the changes to the iPhone 6 appear to be reactionary. Much in the same way that Apple reacted to the surge of popularity for mid-range smartphones with the iPhone 5C, the large-screen iPhone 6 is clearly an answer to Samsung’s (and Android’s) massive market share gains.

Apple will unveil the iPhone 6 at an event on September 9, and then probably release the iPhone 6 on or around September 19. Apple may announce an iWatch at the September 9 event, but most rumors point to a 2015 release date. Look out for more updates as the official unveil draws nearer.

This means that the Apple A8 SoC is going to be a big departure for sure…

…they won’t be just shrinking transistors and do nothing with all the added space.

Also with a bigger form factor for the iPhone going to 4.7″ and maybe 5.5″ too it means that the SoC itself could be a bigger package than the previous ones… and with way smaller transistors that means a lot of changes… more units, more on-chip cache, wider and faster internal bus paths and so on..

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

TSMC isn’t making 14nm chips yet. It’s only just starting to produce 20nm chips in bulk, I think. Samsung is on 20nm too I think, just about.

chojin999

Apple might be getting its chips at 14nm earlier than any other OEM, the technology it’s ready and for Apple they might deliver immediately, production for other OEMs surely delayed to sell to Apple first.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321974
“
Samsung, Globalfoundries Prep 14nm Process
Rick Merritt 4/17/2014 12:35 PM EDT
[..]
Samsung qualified its 14 nm process in February and has multiple
customer chips in production in hopes of volume shipments by the end of the year. GlobalFoundries will qualify the process this year and provide volume production in early 2015.

The initial 14 LPE process targets early time-to-market products,
delivering 20% more performance, 35% less power, and 15% less area than a planar 20 nm process. The two companies plan a follow-up LPP process that will sport 15% better performance than LPE and an undetermined advantage in power.

By contrast, TSMC qualified its 16 nm FinFET process in November, and multiple customer chips now in development are using
it. It expects a fivefold or bigger increase in the number of its 14 nm
designs in 2015.[..]”

TSMC has been ramping volume for 20nm since the beginning of the year/end of last year and their first products are likely to be Apple’s A8 SoC. Because Apple has been hogging most of TSMC’s volume, other customers (Qualcomm) have been complaining and contemplating jumping ship to GloFo and Samsung.

14nm/16nm FinFETs are next year, unfortunately :( By then, Apple will likely split production between both GloFo and TSMC.

mint

The new iPhone will also feature integrated NSA tracking

Timmothy

Really? You’re fucking stupid. If the government wants to get into a phone it will. It doesn’t matter if it’s Apple or not duh

What?

I always dance naked in front of my iPhone and Xbox One.

kroozin

We know!!! So stop doing it.
;)

Ever

Great to finally see Apple trying to catch up.

Albin

That’s the question isn’t it? Are the fan-baby line-ups to catch-up, or to show the way as they once did?

Timmothy

Apple will never have to “catch up” it already creates flawless, top of the line products. It’s the best and it will always be the best.

LOLFanboysaredumb

You are clearly both a fanboy and someone who doesn’t research their hardware. I bet you asked for the one with the WiFi’s and the more GBs, did you get it in white too?

Timmothy

Oh you wanna talk about hardware specs? Let’s talk about Apples A7 64 bit SoC and the M7 coprocessor then :) oh and all the benchmark tests that it clearly surpasses android on :) oh and the protect iOS 7 and the encryption Apple uses?

Timmothy

Oh and hardware is NOTHING without seamless software.

sebastian giacana

and the magical battery drainer osx, A7 was designed by pasemi. apple buys companies cos they re not able to discover anythying but round rectangles…oh wonder no dan_amd in sight…..new nickname for dan_amd( the famous apple ultra sick fanboy)

Dylan Aarhus

Ya dude they don’t even make 64 bit apps so the 64 bit processor is pretty much useless especially when we are still running 32 bit apps that’s why apple is going down hill

dc

ah no.

Dylan Aarhus

Try reading the samsung sales they sale more samsung smartphones than any company in the world and the best if that sorry the truth hurts

dc

that’s because they sale lots of cheap phones. Sorry that the truth hurts…

Dylan Aarhus

There not really cheap bro if your considering it plastic it’s not plastic it’s polycarbonate with is a lot stronger so get your sales research right apple fan boy because samsung dominates apple

dc

Dylan I recognize that your IQ falls somewhat lower than that of the average cat, but still I will point out that I have once stated that I am an Apple fan. As for making something from polycarbonate… it’s an extremely inexpensive process once you have the mold made.

Dylan Aarhus

Dude u don’t even no my I level I’ve had an iPhone and I literally broke my iPhone on top of that apple fan boy the apple 5 was plastic so apple is just as cheap as samsung I’m a samsung fan and you cannot convence me that apple is better because they arent

dc

obviously Samsung doesn’t even have spell check so how can be so great?

Dylan Aarhus

Actually they do and nothing can beat the Google keyboard

dc

I know, I was actually just making a sarcastic reference to the huge number of spelling and grammatical errors in your post. It went over your head, I know.

Dylan Aarhus

Dude your an idiot my Grammer is fine I don’t now about yours though I don’t no if I speak your language dispite your commentto be quite idiotic just like the rest of the scum in the world

Are you serious or are you making a joke of that other guy replying to him ?
XCode generates 64bit binaries of all apps and does a lot of optimizations by itself to ease iOS developers work.

Dylan Aarhus

I no that but a 64 bit app stage has yet to come it would be different if developers were making 64 bit apps daily but the aren’t so apple putting a 64 bit processor in the iPhone s5 is pretty much useless

Dave Haynie

“M7” is just an NXP I/O processor… nothing even slightly magical about it. Sure, it’s a good idea to spend very low power CPU cycles on sensors, rather that your Application Processor cycles. Motorola did the same kind of thing in the Moto X, only covering slightly more interesting I/O. And the basic idea is decades old… Apple just attached a buzzy name to it to make it sound interesting.

SE Android and the spinoff Knox provide far harder security than anything from Apple. The US military is using SE Android in a bunch of projects.

64-bit isn’t terribly interesting until you go beyond 4GB memory. Samsung and others are close, Apple not so much. Without real multitasking, Apple doesn’t need more memory or more cores, so 64-bit was all they could do.

greybirdtoo

Actually the 64 bit runs faster because they optimized the instruction set, and the 64 bit chips have more registers which also speeds processing. So even without more RAM there are advantages. That’s why Samsung and other ARM chip manufacturers have moved to it.

Garyth

Ios is based on objective C code, that is over 30 years old. That is why I can hack your iphone in less than 3 minutes. keep trying ifanboy.

Dylan Aarhus

On I also forgot not even one week of the iPhone 5s release it got hacked by German hackers not to mention there os is shit

David Onter

It doesn’t surpass Android devices in benchmarks .-.

MindMatterMemories

Protection? From what I’ve read, the iCloud was recently broken into using a simple python script. That’s pretty sad.

Timmothy

I think you’re the one who looks at more GB of Ram and think oh it must be faster. Or think that more megapixels make a picture better LOL

LOLFanboysaredumb

You’re hilarious, and again clearly an Apple fanboy. As someone who works with all mobile devices including your Apple devices every single day around the clock, I would expect to find your opinion no different. It is no surprise to me you are chattering on about your beloved 64bit system and about this flawless encryption. It is even less surprising you are talking about benchmarks. What wouldn’t surprise me would be how little you know about the mobile industry as a whole.

I’m sure you have conducted your own research and not simply read something from the internet to base your own reasonable deductions on how superior your beloved Apple products are.
I’m sure you have taken every single mainstream device apart over 50 times and made every repair possible. And of course you have used all these devices yourself for hours at a time to conclude how supreme your Apple products are and how lowly Android is.

You’re Apple fanboys all the same, you regurgitate the same meaningless chatter that Apple feeds you to make you think you are NOT buying already outdated, under geared, sub par hardware that is strictly engineered to bend you over even further to extract your wallet to gorge upon it.

Please by all means buy an Apple product, but don’t think for a second anyone but a fan like you does. Anyone who knows their technology knows you’re buying an Apple logo, fancy paint, and the only choice Apple graciously gave you. Any reasonably intelligent consumer can see where they’re missing out by purchasing a BRAND over a well educated purchase.

Chris

Well said

sebastian giacana

and the funniest thing is when they buy a case with a hole to show the apple logo,its like”hey its apple you must love me or i must get laid cos i paid a lot fo money…..”i paid 800$ to feel somebody..” sad..that s the reason why they get so aggresve when somebody bash the only thing that gives apple fanboys a reason to live…………………..timothy is DAN_AMD

Alfonso Muñoz C.

Guys i am just happy we have many options.
I will buy a iphone and you will buy a android phone and we all will be happy. =)
By the way I hope to never again buy an TimeCapsule and a router from apple but the notebooks and their phones are super good. and I will keep buying them. =) you can do the same with android and we all benefit.

sebastian giacana

what about a company making a thinner phone with lesser battery, and what else you do with a thinner iphone?? remove dirt of your 5inch heels?

wq

“It’s the best and it will always be the best.”

Spoken like a true buffoon.

J@ck3l

Hi Tim Cook. Welcome to Extreme Tech…! Honored to have you here.

http://www.something.com/ standard

“flawless”
hahahahahahahahaha

sebastian giacana

top of the line? yeh when they look like trash after 2 months in your packet, yeh there is cheap aluminum too ,heard about ifixit?..why iphones scratch so easily and the paint, check your data teen..this fanboy has outshined dan_amd

Scott Jackson

Looks like someone needs to crawl up out of Apple’s ass…

Mike Snoow

there is more hype for the iphone 6 launch then the moon landing it must be so hard to make 4.7in display i bet

khakkhab

9oukh njgjhgbnmhkcxdgc vbdfdhfvefrtfjthtiiluyi790ukhkyhk

MB

Stevie Wonder trying to comment?

khakkhab

i need a iphone six in lowest price near 20000 thausand rupees,can you please someone give me

wq

No.

trollol

I’ll get you an iPhone……if you suck my balls.

HA

And I’ll get u an iPhone… if your mom suck my balls…

Magnus Blomberg

Why don’t the two of you start sucking each others balls and pass an iPhone back and forth :)

I’m quite happy to wait for the official reveal. Not like we can do anything with rumours, even if they turn out to be true.

Benny X

I can’t wait until smartphone hype dies out and they become as ho-hum as ‘ol wired telephones.

Harry_Wild

It would be no technological breakthrough if Apple use the hard case of the iPod touch 5th generation for the iPhone6 since it been developed and refined already. Apple just needs to make it a little bigger and that is it!
The screen resolution is the interesting point! Samsung and HTC is coming up with a “Prime” version that calls for Quad HD or 2K pixel density. Will Apple go all out and match this? I don’t think so; they can blow it off saying that it stupid! They will just boost it a little as possible to make it HD but not over that since it going to improve the iPhone 6 too much and they plan on doing it with 6S!
Color cases is interesting since it adds to the options for the buyers and it just sprayed on so they can have many colors for “nothing”. I looking for Yellow but it many not be available until 6S! Plus, Apple can do it in a protective case too for $25; cost Apple about .50 to make.
Apple does not like to offer to much RAM. Most Android now have 3GB; so I think Apple will shell out another $5 to boost an additional 1GB to make it 2GB size.
The iPhone 6 should be the highest profit margin for them since there is little or not engineering involve with the case. Apple just needs to get the new A8 SoC and hype it as revolutionary!
Sure I going buy one! Why not? It only going be about $1,000 full load with 128GB storage! LOL! Only live once! The nice think about iPhones it that it keeps their value!

sebastian giacana

Apple has that pile of money cos they have the dorkiest customers

Neon Frank

After all that fuss Apple made about Samsung Galaxy S3 being a copy of an iPhone now the iPhone looks like a Samsung Galaxy. Those pugnacious twats.

David Onter

*HTC One (M8)

sparkeyjames

The hardware specs will hardly matter if the phone is saddled with the piece of crap that is IOS.

chojin999

iOS aka BSD + Mach kernel just like OS X it’s far better than any Linux Android crap for sure. BSD and Mach are true Unix software technologies.
And NeXTSTEP tech is inside OSX/iOS as well..
The whole Linux thing is a messed up Unix hack. BSD is real Unix.
And Google with Android managed to mess things up even worse than how much Linux was messed up already by itself.

sparkeyjames

I could care less whether it’s made from Linux, a very capable OS, or BSD an equally capable OS. In IOS the user interface sucks. If it were’nt for the fact that certain 3rd party music apps ONLY run under IOS I’d chuck it in an instant. You also show your ignorance of OS construction. Both Linux and BSD are community based Open source software. BSD over the years has been so largly rewritten as to be a shadow of what it was when the University of California at Berkley took possession of the source code back in 1984 and released 4.2BSD. So what would you like to be using an OS like Linux developed by a confederation of software programming professionals or BSD originally software developed by AT&T then hacked on by college software students then more recently some software pro’s. Linux runs on more devices (not just phones) world wide than IOS ever will. Linux still runs over half of all internet servers world wide plus is the OS of choice on most Super Computer installations. Your ignorance proceeds your intelligence.

Joe Schmoe

Even if everything the rumors say will happen do, it’s still going to be worse than Android.

Rick Nunez

IPhone still with one physical home bottom, Until they don’t change it. I will never buy one. I have a Samsung, if they don’t remove it too, I will buy another phone.

Colleen Osbaldo

I have conflict with this design, the very first thing is the size which seems to be not appropriate and looking to big ( like a tablet) , another thing which I don’t like is that the display screen portion that cover the whole screen. The company should introduce smarter cell phone design as it also puts affect on their profitability which is currently felt depression http://bit.ly/1oMvuaL

iphone 6 would be the best smartphone of 2014 and it would be quite interesting when Galaxy note 4and iPhone 6 releases.

CLIFF

gadget2us Leather injected iPhone6 Leather case FROM gadget2us

convolution

Bigger screen? FUCKING REVOLUTIONARY! GG ANDROID FANBOYS!

zn

What’s going on with this story? The post date is 8th September, yet all but a few comments are from four months ago. Rolling stories are cool, but sometimes you need to break out a new url to avoid this kind of flashback to the past, especially on the eve of a major product launch!

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

There’s nothing wrong with a few older comments! (In my opinion anyway — if you think otherwise, I’d be happy to hear your feelings on the matter.)
In this case, the story is almost completely new, with all the updated rumors/leaks.

zn

Yeah, all good. The story is new but the comments are old, which is why I think you guys should have just started a new story. Anyway, my opinion is that I have no opinion because I’d rather wait 24 hours till the actual product is released rather than speculating beforehand (even if final specs are all but confirmed).

I also try not to get too involved in the never-ending seasonal update cycle. The reason you have so much info about the new iPhone is because Apple has deigned it to be this way. Why people get so excited about products they haven’t yet even touched I have no idea. I’m more interested in the trends than the products themselves.

N2K12

Another piece of shit scam by apple. It’s all hype. only noobs own iphones. android is the best, and so is the xbox won

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